Coffee

Last night went something like this.

7.30 or so: Mabel's bedtime. And Monkey's, but he's not involved in this particular saga.
8.30 or so: Mabel's sleep time. To be honest, I don't really remember.
9.30: Mabel's first wake-up. I got her back to sleep, put on my pyjamas, brushed my teeth, and went back to the movie we were watching.
10.15: Mabel's second wake-up. After getting her back to sleep, I gave up on seeing the last 20 minutes of the movie and just went to bed.
12.00: Mabel's next wake-up. To be honest, I'm making up the times now, because I don't retain it all from one night to the next, lest I go stark raving mad. But this is more or less how it goes.
3.00: Mabel's next wake-up. At this point I'm in her bed, so it doesn't bother me much.
Then the fun part happened.
4.40: Mabel sits up and announces that her teeth hurt and she needs medicine. She makes for the door. I reluctantly look at the clock, calculate that just maybe her teeth really do hurt that much, lever myself off the bed, and give her a dose of Motrin. We go back to bed.
4.50: Mabel sits up and says she has a wee. Which has to be done on the toilet even though she's wearing a pullup. Of course it does. Because it's the middle of the night. We go to the bathroom. She wees. We go back to bed.
5.00: Mabel sits up again and says she has a poo. I seriously doubt it, but it's late and I'm powerless. If I have to be up at 3am, I'm perfectly alert, but between 4 and 6 is pretty much the lowest ebb of the soul. I sit on the floor in front of her as she sits chirpily doing nothing at all on the toilet, and feel a little like crying.
5.10: We finally go back to bed. Mabel asks: "Are only grown-ups awake now?" I say, "Nobody's awake now, Mabel." This time the Motrin has kicked in and after a little while she's able to sleep.
7.00: Mabel's awake for the day. She happily gets out of bed and wanders downstairs to find Daddy. I roll over and embrace unconsciousness for another blessed hour, just happy that I have a husband with flexible working hours.